1 Just go and die already

As Evan opened his eyes he couldn't help but feel confused, how could he be lying on an open field right now? The last thing he remembered was heading to bed in his small apartment yet now the sun actually burnt down on his body.

Looking around he couldn't stop himself from trying to remember how he could have gotten here, maybe his friends had decided to play a prank on him? No way, he locked the door to his apartment so none of them could even have gotten inside.

He shook his head feeling a headache coming up while taking in his surroundings, other than a forest in the far distance the grass he woke up on seemed to be near endless. "Wait could I have been transported to another world?" he exclaimed as he thought of a setting he had read in many novels he had read before. Smiling to himself as he decided that this must be what happened he slowly got up from the spot he was lying in.

"That's awesome, I wonder whether I got some kind of cheat like the characters in those novels tend to get." Wondering whether his physical abilities might have been improved he started running in a random direction away from the forest, however within five minutes he started to feel exhausted enough to just fall over, out of breath he started coughing "O-Okay, not physical power then. Maybe I can use magic now?"

Trying to think of some way to use magic he started calling out "Fire Ball" and even tried using some lating sounding words but without any success either.

Suddenly in the back of his mind he heard a voice "Potential maximization system - Starting up". He jumped in surprise as he heard the voice before breaking out in a wide grin "Awesome so my cheat is a system, come on finish booting up and help me become as awesome as the main characters in those novels" He exclaimed happily, aware of just how overpowered most systems in novels are.

After what seemed like an eternity to him the system finally finished booting up and he once again heard the robotic voice in his mind. "Start up complete, assessing owners capabilities." Evan started to feel more and more anxious as he waited for the system to finish checking his abilities. Finally a few moments later a screen appeared in his vision.

Swordarts: F

Magic Arts: F

Archery: F

Axewielding: F

His excitement started to weaken as he saw more and more F-rankings in his assessment. Only near the end of the list he finally saw something different.

Gunwielding: B

Production: SSS

System suggestion: Please try being reborn again, you won't be able to achieve greatness with those stats.

Evans mouth fell open after reading the system's suggestion "Come on can't you be more supportive? I do have two things I am skilled at after all right?" he exclaimed loudly, surprised to actually see a triple S rating for one of his skills. "The owners capabilities are too low, even rabbits could easily kill you in this world, please just go and die already." The voice replied in its dead pan tone of voice before giving off a sound of shutting down "Due to the low capabilities of the owner the system has gone into hibernation mode."

"Screw this system" Evan mumbled to himself as he started to head off hoping to find a city "I do have one fighting talent so I am not completely useless." Continuing to walk he started to feel more and more annoyed by how weak the system assessed him to be. After walking for hours he felt his stomach begin to grumble as he started to feel hungry, only then did he realize that he didn't even have any money should he find a town so he'd be unable to buy any food or even rent a room.

"Why couldn't I at least be reincarnated as the son of a rich clan head or something." His annoyance growing only bigger along with his hunger. "Ugh I am starving" continuing down the road he kept looking around for something to eat until he finally decided to just try and pick some of the grass from under his feet. Suddenly a text box opened in his vision again telling him the properties of the grass he just picked.

Low grade Spirit Grass

Contains a slight amount of Qi making it usable for cultivation. However it also contains small amounts of poison which is the reason only the poorest of the poor use it to supply them with Qi. Often causes death by poisoning when a weak cultivator consumes too much as the neccessary amount of Qi easily reaches levels that can't be attained without ingesting lethal amounts of poison.

"Just great so I pick up something that actually contains Qi but it just so happens to be poisonous" he said putting the grass into his pocket anyways in case he really doesn't find anything else to eat. "Well at least it appears the system still has a bit of its function despite going into hibernation." After walking some more he finally noticed smoke rising up in the distance "Finally I think I have found civilisation" he said with a smile heading in the direction the smoke was rising from "Maybe I can get something to eat from whoever lives there."

About half an hour later he finally reached the source of the smoke, a bit surprised he realized that it wasn't so much civilization as it was a single house standing in the middle of nowhere with a muscular man standing outside wearing a leather apron over his dirty clothes which seemed to have been white in the past but have mostly turned black by now. He hesitated for a while before continuing to approach the building.

Aware the man had already taken notice of him he lifted both his hands to show that he was unarmed "Hello stranger, I am Evan and I have come from a far off place. I was wondering whether you had anything to eat for me. Of course I wont take it for free, I am going to work for the food." Slowly approaching the building he noticed a smirk form on the mans lips "You want to work for the food? Just look at your arms, can you even lift a smithing hammer?" after pausing for a bit "Anyways I am Iron Mountain, come over here, I don't have much but I can at least let you have a bite"

Evan barely managed to stop himself from laughing out as he heard the man's name thinking that it sure is a weird name and wondering whether the smith's parents had already known what job he'd take in the future. As he reached the man he couldn't help but cringe slightly as Iron Mountain took a loaf of bread out of his pocket, already grey and stained with dirt, tore off about a quarter and held it out for him to take. "Thank you Mister Mountain" he said before taking a bite of the coarse bread, only his hunger kept him from spitting it out again right away as he tasted it, the bread tasted bitter and there had been too much salt aded into it.

Yet Evan kept eating it bite after bite just to hear the smith laugh at him "Tastes horrible doesn't it? I have baked it myself but I am not too good at it," shrugging the smith took a bite of his part of his bread before grimacing from the taste. the two couldn't help but laugh a bit about this, the smith seemed happy to have someone keep him company and Evan also felt better seeing that he apparently had made a new friend.

Remembering how high his production abilities were Evan decided to make an offer "How about I try whether I can bake some better bread and in return you allow me to stay here for a while?" Having been a single man for almost all his life Evan had already cooked and baked a few times to get something on the table and unlike something like forging he was sure he could at least somewhat competently finish that task.